Chandar is a black leopard who lives near the beach of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) together] with his mother and his sister. When fishers arrive they have to leave and move to a temple in the jungle. When Chandra explores the new territory he falls into a river but the old Buddhist monk Sumana rescues him from the water. Three years later Chandar gets separated from his family during a forest fire and has to learn to live on his own. He meets Sumana again when the monk starts on a pilgrimage together with the young boy Dasa. They visit the old temples and statues of Ceylon and Sumana teaches him Buddhist philosophy and wisdom. Chandar follows them out of curiosity. During an elephant hunt Chandar saves the boy from the wild elephants but gets himself captured by the hunters and is sold to a circus. Some weeks later the boy frees the leopard from his cage in the circus. Meanwhile the police is searching for another leopard who killed a villager. When they see Chandar, they try to shoot him but he can escape by jumping down a cliff. Then Chandar meets a female leopard and they hunt together. The man-eating leopard attacks Chandar but he can defeat him. When Sumana and Dasa reach the end of their pilgrimage the man-eater attacks Dasa but Chandar kills him. When the police arrives the pilgrims convince them that Chandar is not the man-eater. The boy returns to his father and Sumana spends the rest of his life as a hermit in the jungle.

suttametta wrote:The Wolf of Wall Street. Theme is the unreality of samsara. The story starts off with Leonardo getting schooled on the unreal nature of Wall Street by Matthew McConaughey. Then it becomes a kaleidoscope of the visions of greed and ignorance. This is a reflection on the suffering of samsara.

I haven't seen that yet but that was the sense I got from the trailer, also "American Hustle" seems to be dealing with similar themes. I haven't watched the Breaking Bad series but from looking at excerpts on youtube these all seem to be highlighting the "dead end" dysfunctional ways of samsara. Like American Beauty, another wonderful film on the first two Noble truths…

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"As Buddhists, we should aim to develop relationships that are not predominated by grasping and clinging. Our relationships should be characterised by the brahmaviharas of metta (loving kindness), mudita (sympathetic joy), karuna (compassion), and upekkha (equanimity)."~post by Ben, Jul 02, 2009

MN 45: Cula-dhammasamadana Sutta wrote:Just as if a maluva creeper pod were to burst open in the last month of the hot season, and a maluva creeper seed were to fall at the foot of a sala tree. The deva living in the tree would become frightened, apprehensive, & anxious. Her friends & companions, relatives & kin — garden devas, forest devas, tree devas, devas living in herbs, grass, & forest monarchs — would gather together to console her: 'Have no fear, have no fear. In all likelihood a peacock is sure to swallow this maluva creeper seed, or a deer will eat it, or a brush fire will burn it up, or woodsmen will pick it up, or termites will carry it off, and anyway it probably isn't really a seed.'

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Please do see M Night Shyamalan's Happening--one of the greatest film on environmental destruction ever made---and thank you for making this post..i would love to disclose more about that film but I am resisting...i think seeing your post..The Happening surely qualifies as a Dhamma film?

MN 45: Cula-dhammasamadana Sutta wrote:Just as if a maluva creeper pod were to burst open in the last month of the hot season, and a maluva creeper seed were to fall at the foot of a sala tree. The deva living in the tree would become frightened, apprehensive, & anxious. Her friends & companions, relatives & kin — garden devas, forest devas, tree devas, devas living in herbs, grass, & forest monarchs — would gather together to console her: 'Have no fear, have no fear. In all likelihood a peacock is sure to swallow this maluva creeper seed, or a deer will eat it, or a brush fire will burn it up, or woodsmen will pick it up, or termites will carry it off, and anyway it probably isn't really a seed.'

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Please do see M Night Shyamalan's Happening--one of the greatest film on environmental destruction ever made---and thank you for making this post..i would love to disclose more about that film but I am resisting...i think seeing your post..The Happening surely qualifies as a Dhamma film?

"Buddha's Lost Children" simply beautiful"Zen Noir" won a number of awards (available for free download)"Buddha Wallah" (available for free download) apparently latest film by the same director has been selected by Germany for an Oscar nomination in Best Foreign Film Category"1 Mile Above"

suttametta wrote:The Wolf of Wall Street. Theme is the unreality of samsara. The story starts off with Leonardo getting schooled on the unreal nature of Wall Street by Matthew McConaughey. Then it becomes a kaleidoscope of the visions of greed and ignorance. This is a reflection on the suffering of samsara.

I haven't seen that yet but that was the sense I got from the trailer, ...

I haven't seen it either and I'm not going to bother since my (adult) son saw it and couldn't find a single good word to say about it. "Trashy movie about the worst side of American society," just about summarises his response. Do we really need more of such stuff?

"Naked Mind" film in the making, there is lots of anticipation around it, one of director's aims is to show it in prisons to inspire inmates interested in meditationLink to an interview with Sarah Barab, the director:

I don't know if this has already been posted but this movie is amazing, and though it may not necessarily be theravada It's a beautiful story, which I honestly when I first started watching it I thought it was going to be goofy chinese cinema, but by the end of the film I found it to be a beautiful story. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/journey_to_the_west_2014/ Journey to the West.

A film that is not exactly Dhamma-themed but may be of interest to people here is Ashes and Snow. From IMDB:

"Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them."

"In exploring the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals, I am working towards rediscovering the common ground that once existed when people saw themselves as part of nature and not outside of it. The destiny of whales cannot be separated from the destiny of man, and the destiny of man cannot be separated from the destiny of all of nature. I am exploring new narratives that help build a bridge across the artificial boundaries we have established between ourselves and other species.....The feature film was edited by two-time Oscar winner Pietro Scalia. It is narrated by Laurence Fishburne (English), Ken Watanabe (Japanese), Enrique Rocha (Spanish), and Jeanne Moreau (French). Musical collaborators include Michael Brook, David Darling, Heiner Goebbels, Lisa Gerrard, Lukas Foss, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and Djivan Gasparyan."

There's a copy on youtube but I suspect that it's not there officially.

IMDb says: “It begins with morning, natural landscapes and people at prayer: volcanoes, water falls, veldts, and forests. Indigenous people apply body paint; whole villages dance. The film moves to destruction of nature via logging, blasting, and strip mining. Images of poverty, rapid urban life, and factories give way to war, concentration camps, and mass graves. Ancient ruins come into view, and then a sacred river where pilgrims bathe and funeral pyres burn. Prayer and nature return. A monk rings a huge bell; stars wheel across the sky.”

Your mentioning that reminds me of a film I saw in theaters a few years back called Samsara. It's in similar vein as Baraka (in fact it's the same director) and is shot with 70mm film. I thought it was a powerful film in theaters but I don't know how well that would translate to household viewing.

Your mentioning that reminds me of a film I saw in theaters a few years back called Samsara. It's in similar vein as Baraka (in fact it's the same director) and is shot with 70mm film. I thought it was a powerful film in theaters but I don't know how well that would translate to household viewing.

If the parts of a ship are replaced, bit-by-bit, is it still the same ship?

A photographer grapples with the loss of her talent as an aftermath of a clinical procedure; an erudite monk, who advocates non-violence and animal rights, confronts an ethical dilemma between principles and death; a young stockbroker, following the trail of a stolen kidney, learns how complex morality can be.

Following the separate journeys of philosophical reflection, and how they eventually converge, SHIP OF THESEUS explores questions of identity, justice, beauty and death.

For those of you that have children there is a cartoon on youtube.Simply search "Buddha Cartoon" and the video is called "The Legend of The Buddha (cartoon film)"It's a cute 1.5 hour animated film of Siddhartha reaching enlightenment.

I will say that there is a scene, when Siddhartha's mother is giving birth to him, the audio does sound... somewhat sexual, however I doubt it's intentual.

"Thoughts reduced to paper are generally nothing more than the footprints of a man walking in the sand. It is true that we see the path he has taken; but to know what he saw on the way, we must use our own eyes" Arthur Schopenhauer

David mentioned this one awhile back, Edge of Tomorrow. It's much like Groundhog Day except the protagonist is dying instead of waking up and it's a sci-fi action movie rather than a romantic comedy. Tom Cruise gives a very good performance, playing (partly) a cowardly, slimy role as opposed to the usual "brimming with confidence" character he is wont to play.